Editor's note: The Georgia Museum of Art provided
source material to Resource Library Magazine for the following article
or essay. If you have questions or comments regarding the source material,
please contact the Georgia Museum of Art directly through either this phone
number or web address:
Armin Landeck
Armin Landeck, a retrospective exhibition of the American artist's prints with
related drawings, paintings, and illustrated books, will be on view at the
Georgia Museum of Art from December 13, 2003 until February 8, 2004.
Born in Wisconsin, Armin Landeck (1905-1984) studied at
the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and Columbia 
University.
During his student days in New York, he took classes at the Arts Students
League and explored the city's museums and galleries. It was during this
time that he began experimenting with printmaking, producing his first print
The Armenian. Thus, began a lengthy artistic career. Nearly 100 prints
covering the span of his career are included in this exhibition. Best known
for his haunting views of Manhattan and architectural interiors, Landeck
also recorded still-life arrangements and landscape settings in Connecticut.
(right: Armin Landeck (1905-1984), North River Vista, 1932,
lithograph on wove paper, Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia;
gift of June and Norman Kraeft)
In the 1930s, Landeck joined forces with Martin Lewis to
open the School of Printmakers in George Miller's 14th Street Studio in
New York. Together, the artists offered classes on lithography, etching,
drypoint, mezzotint, and wood engraving. Sadly, the Depression forced them
to close their school only after a year. But Landeck continued to emerge
as a towering force in New York's artistic circles as he experimented with
different media such as copper engraving. A member of the Society of American
Etchers (known today as the Society of American Graphic Artists), he was
also elected to the prestigious National Academy of Design, the Institute
of the American Academy, and the Institute of Arts and Letters. A recipient
of the Guggenheim Fellowship, he won several other acclaimed awards.
At a time when Manhattan's skyline was transformed dramatically
in the first few decades of the 20th century, Landeck's prints revealed
the dense majesty of the cityscape dotted with architectural masterpieces
like the Woolworth and Chrysler buildings. His prints also reveal a preoccupation
with shadows, an element that featured heavily in early black-and-white
cinema, particularly in film noir. The unusual angles, lonely streets, and
nocturnal settings in his images can be related to the poignant loneliness
of urban life depicted by Landeck's contemporaries like Edward Hopper, John
Sloan, and Martin Lewis.
A brochure with essays written by June and Norman Kraeft
and Romita Ray accompanies this exhibition. A film noir series will be screened
in January and early February.
On view in the George-Ann and Boone Knox Gallery and the
Lamar Dodd Gallery, Armin Landeck is generously sponsored by Alfred
Heber L. Holbrook Society member Mr. C.L. Morehead, Jr., by the W. Newton
Morris Charitable Foundation, and by the Friends of the Museum. Romita Ray,
curator of the Mark and Debra Callaway Department of Prints and Drawings,
organized the exhibition.
Read more articles and essays concerning this institutional
source by visiting the sub-index page for the Georgia
Museum of Art in Resource Library
Magazine
Search for more
articles and essays on American art in Resource Library. See America's Distinguished Artists for biographical information on historic artists.
This page was originally published in 2003 in Resource
Library Magazine. Please see Resource Library's Overview section for
more information.
Copyright 2012 Traditional
Fine Arts Organization, Inc., an Arizona nonprofit
corporation. All rights reserved.